“You’re not listening to me!” The follow up question is usually, “Mommy, are you mad?” And I respond, “Yes, I am!” and cross my fingers that my little guilt trip will entice my son to clean up his room, wash his hands or stop flushing food down the toilet. After days on end of feeling not listened to, I can’t help but relish in a moment when someone DID listen to me—in this case, a major food company. Perdue Farms, the third largest producer of chicken in the U.S., announced on Wednesday that it is now raising 95% of its birds without antibiotics that are important to human medicine. This is an important step towards helping preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics to treat our children and family members when they need these life-saving drugs most. When antibiotics don’t work, it can lead to longer illnesses, more hospitalizations, the use of drugs with greater side-effects, and even death when treatments fail. Jonathan Kaplan of Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) confirms that the Perdue announcement is “big news in an industry that has too often relied on a steady stream of antibiotics to keep birds growing fast and help them survive crowded, stressful, and unsanitary industrial farm conditions.” In fact, did you know that 80% of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are sold for farm animals, not people? Combined with overuse of antibiotics by us humans, this breeds antibiotic-resistant bacteria, aka “superbugs” that have me up at night worrying that one day antibiotics might not work when my son really needs them. I’m thrilled that Perdue has faced these facts and decided to curb antibiotics use. I’m also thrilled that they seem to be listening to consumers like me who want real change and transparency when it comes to the food we eat. I hope they go one step further and get independent verification of their accomplishment. It all goes to show that meat and poultry companies that care can begin to “raise the floor” for the entire industry and lead the way. So, thank you, Perdue, for listening to moms like me. Now, let’s push another chicken giant, Foster Farms—the largest chicken producer in the West and the 6th largest in the U.S.—to follow suit! You can Re-tweet to urge @FosterFarms to step up and curb #antibiotic use in chicken.
